Objectivity and values in sociology

• All members of society-including sociologists - have values, beliefs and opinions
• Some argue that it is both possible and desirable for sociologists to keep their subject values out of their research


  Others argue that staying value-neutral is impossible, because sociologists are humans studying other humans
• For the early positivists Comte and Durkheim, sociology's job was


  To discover the truth about how society worked and to improve human life
• Sociologists would be able to say with scientific certainty what was best for society
• Marx too saw himself as a scientist. He believed he had discovered the truth about society's future and the inevitability of classless society
• Weber distinguishes between


  Value judgments and facts
• Weber argues that a value can neither be proved nor disproved by the facts- they belong to different realms
• Essential role for values in sociological research according to Weber


  • Values as a guide to research
  • Data collection and hypothesis testing
  • Values in the interpretation of data
  • Values and the sociologist as a citizen
• Sociology cannot tell us what values or goals we should hold
• Sociology can tell us what means we should adopt if we want to achieve certain goals that we value, and the consequences of holding those values
• 20th century positivists argued that their own values were irrelevant to their research


  Because science is concerned with matters of fact, not value, so sociologists should remain morally neutral
• Gouldner argues that by the 1950s, American sociologists in particular had become 'mere spiritless technicians' hiring themselves out to organisations such as government and the military
• Myrdal and Gouldner argue that sociologists should not only identify their values


  They should also openly take sides, espousing the interests of actual groups
• Becker argues that we should take the side of the underdog (criminal, mental patients etc) identifying with the powerless
• Gouldner adopts a Marxist perspective, arguing that it is not enough to describe the underdogs' life-sociologists should be committed to ending their oppression
• Most research is funded by government, businesses etc, and who pays for research may control its direction and the questions it asks
• Funding bodies may prevent publication of the research if its findings prove unacceptable
• Sociologists may want to further their careers. This may influence their choice of topic and they may censor themselves for fear of harming their career
• For Gouldner, all research is inevitably influenced by values
• Values influence the topics that sociologists of different perspectives choose, the concepts they develop and the conclusions they reach
• Sociologists' values influence choice of methods; eg. Becker's support for the underdog leads him to choose qualitative methods to reveal the underdog's world
• Relativism argues that different groups and individuals have different views as to what is true and these reflect their own values and interests, and there is no way of judging whether any view is truer than any other
• Postmodernists take a relativist view - there are no 'privileged accounts' of society that have special access to the truth
• From a relativist standpoint, there is no single absolute or objective truth. What you believe to be true, is true- for you
• Any perspective claiming to have the truth is just a meta-narrative or big story based on values and assumptions
• Durkheim and Comte


  Believed that making society better doesn't lie in subjective values/personal opinions on what's 'best'
• Sociology


  The science of society that discovers the truth about how society works/laws about its functioning-we should use this knowledge to fix social problems
• Marx, Comte and Durkheim don't distinguish between facts revealed by science and values we should hold because they believed science would tell us these values
• Weber


  Distinguishes between facts revealed by science and values we should hold, and says we can't derive one from the other
• Example


  • Research may show divorces as more likely to commit suicide, but this fact doesn't show the truth of the value judgement that we should make getting a divorce harder
• Weber's view shows that no value judgements are proven by an established facts
• Weber sees an essential role for values in sociological research
• It's debated as to whether Marx was a positivist, but we do know that he saw himself as a scientist, and believed he could reveal the line of development of human society via historical analysis and materialism
• Marx's sociology is to scientifically reveal the truth of this development to the proletariat, as they would be the class to overthrow capitalism and start communist society
• Values as a guide to research

  Social reality is made up of a meaningless infinity of facts, meaning it's impossible to study it as a whole. Therefore, we should only study select areas in terms of their value relevance to our own values or research
• Data collection & hypothesis testing

  Though values are essential to picking what to study, we must be as objective and unbiased as possible when actually collecting facts. This means keeping our own values out of research, like not asking leading questions. Values must also be kept out while using the gathered facts to test the hypothesis
• Values in the interpretation of data


  Values become important when we need to interpret the data collected. The facts have to put in a theoretical framework in order to draw conclusions and understand their significance. Weber argues that our choice of theoretical framework is influenced by our values, so we need to make the values very clear so other researchers can decide if there is unconscious bias in our interpretation
• Values & the sociologist as a citizen

  Sociologists are also citizens, so they can't dodge moral/political issues their work raises by hiding behind objectivity and value freedom
• Desire to appear scientific

  Because science is concerned with objective facts, sociologists should stay morally neutral, their jobs being to establish the truth about people's behaviour, not judge
• The social position of sociology


  Sociology had gone from a critical discipline that often challenged accepted authority to sociology being 'problem takers' who hired themselves out to organisations. The business/military to taken on and solve their problems for them